You probably won’t get good at using, say, computers, unless you learn the meaning of a few key words.
It’s not that different for being a Christian or, even, Presbyterian. We have to develop a core vocabulary. Through many years as a teacher, however, I have come to the conclusion that even some future ministers don’t have a firm grasp of the meaning of many words we use regularly in the church.
(If you catch me in a private moment, ask me about the time I put “consummation of marriage” on a definitions test at college.) So let’s think about two key words, “Presbyterian” and “Reformed.”
“Presbyterian” is a description of the structure and government of our church. It means government by elders, both teaching and ruling, called and elected by the members of the church, gathered together in councils or “courts.” That word defines who we are with respect to the structure of church.
By contrast, “Reformed” is the word for the core theology of our church. If I were asked, “What are the defining characteristics of Reformed theology?” I would reply, “An emphasis on the sovereign grace of God and the third and principal use of the law.” Let’s save the latter for another article and talk about the sovereign grace of God. We ought not speak about the sovereignty of God without simultaneously speaking of the grace of God. Still less should we speak of the related word “omnipotence” as an abstract attribute of God that can somehow be separated from the grace and love of God. Omnipotence without love sounds more like the devil than God, or to be more exact, it sounds like a devil’s ambition.
Moreover, we can get stuck with trick questions such as, “Can God create a stone too large for God to roll away?” It doesn’t matter what size stone God can roll away. What matters is that God has the ability to do what God wants to do, to reach out in love to all God’s creatures. To affirm the gracious sovereignty of God is to say that God can do what is in God’s nature to do. Our core affirmation, not just as Reformed Christians but as Christians of any sort, is that if we want to know God’s nature, we look at Jesus. I think we would want to add that the Holy Spirit imprints that knowledge of God through Jesus on our hearts. When we look at Jesus, we are assured not so much that God is omnipotent but that God is strong enough to save. God is strong enough to roll away the stone from the tomb. God is strong enough to roll away all the stones that keep us from new life.
This leads to one more key word, “church.” Where does that odd word come from? The French église is easy; it comes from the Greek ekklesia, which ultimately comes from the verb to call out. “Church” is harder. There are several theories, one of which is that it comes from the Greek word for “circle.” In our day of “healing circles,” that is an interesting thought. But a more persuasive explanation is that it comes from the Greek kyriakou. (You may hear it better in the Scots’ “kirk” or German kirche. That word means, “of the Lord,” or “the Lord’s.” The church, then, is the fellowship of those who have been called out to be the Lord’s. And that Lord is strong enough to roll away the stones that keep the church from new life.
